After some weeks I got down to Nevin, in North Wales, but it was extraordinary what a long time it was before I got over the shock. Of course, for many months I was often in pain, but with every desire and incitement to get back to ordinary life I found I had not, at first, the will to do it. I remember Dr. Leech, who was making a tour of that part of Wales to write an essay on its climatology,
came up to see me, and was insistent in his kindly way upon my having a swim. I had had to grow a beard, and I looked like an Anarchist, and I hated going about, because people stared at me. However, the next day I crawled down to the shore with Dr. Leech, and with the aid of two sticks walked into the sea. I regarded the doctor as a manslaughterer at the time, but when I came out rejoicing and walking ever so much better I knew I had won the first victory. The second was over my bicycle, which I knew I couldn’t possibly ride, and very nearly didn’t in consequence. After that I got bold and went swimming out a bit until a six-inch wave knocked me on the side of the head, and reminded me that I was very far from being whole.
I recall these things because I have often found them useful to refer to in those difficult cases of neurasthenia and malingering in workmen’s compensation cases. Here was I, with every incentive to recovery and every desire to recover, and every opportunity that human being could have, bungling the affair from want of the necessary will power. I learned that after a severe shock it is a really tough job for an honest man to get himself back into condition, and that long after wounds and limbs are healed or mended there remains a real mental indisposition to look the world in the face again that is hard to overcome. Even to-day, though all the effects of the accident have practically passed away, I cannot sit still if anyone suddenly opens a soda-water bottle at the back of me, and I am distinctly gun-shy.
I got back to work in November. It was too early, and I broke down again, but I did get back to work and was able to do it. I could not have stood a formal greeting, but a great many friends came down, and there was quite a crowded court as I took my seat. I had arranged with Charley McKeand that as soon as I took my seat he should jump up and ask for some imaginary case to be adjourned to prevent anyone starting an oration. This was done. A few days afterwards Joseph Collier, the surgeon, told me an amusing anecdote about it. “I was coming down Byrom Street,” he said, “and the officer at the door, whom I know, called out to me, ‘Hi, Mr. Collier, you’d better coom into coort this morning. There’s gran’ doin’s on. Judge Parry’s taking his seat again, and Charley McKeand’s down, an’ ’e’ll be makin’ a fine pow-wow. You see.’ So I went in,” continued Collier, “and as you know, nothing happened. When I came out I jeered at the policeman, who seemed quite upset. ‘I never saw the like of it,’ he said. ‘After all that’s ’appened, and ’im so well liked and aw, and they make no more fuss than if he’d just been off the bench to have a drink like usual.’”
I think the officer referred to the luncheon interval. There were certainly no other adjournments, even on the thirstiest days, though Collier often used to chaff me about it. However, I soon had a good story against Collier. There had been an accident to a workman, which was said to have resulted in concussion of the spine. The workman
was a very stolid character, and Collier had examined him for the insurance company. The following cross-examination took place:—
“Do you remember Mr. Collier examining you?”
“Aye, I do.”
“Did he stick a pin into your thigh?”
“Aye, ’e did an aw.”